Friday, March 28, 2014

I have an update on my Easter stitching. I have been filling in flowers, leaves and stems.

I have taken out the pale pink floss on the text, it was way too light for the rest of the color palette. I am thinking that maybe I shouldn't have done ALL the lazy daisy flowers in this dark pink {?} but I think I will wait until I have filled in more of the motifs to decide:

You can see I am dangerously close to the end of my dark purple floss {DMC #340} so as soon as I find some more, I can finish this up!

Monday, March 24, 2014

I am continuing on with my organizing - this time it is crochet! Because I like to keep a journal of my projects and materials, I designed a crochet journal. I am learning how to crochet and I already have a nice collection of hooks and a sizable stash of yarn.

All the pages are printable so I can print out new project pages every time I start on a project.

I also like recording and having a permanent record of all the measurements I need for myself or if I am making something for someone else.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Time for another installment of my 100 Stitches progress. This beautiful stitch is called Mosaic Filling. I should say this is my version of Mosaic Filling. The written instructions for this stitch seemed pretty straightforward, however one of the in-progress pictures from the book completely confused me. I will explain why when I get to that step. I ended up finishing this stitch as I thought was the correct way and mine does look just like the finished picture in 100 Stitches so that is what I will demonstrate.

This is a drawn fabric embroidery stitch and is worked over an area of 12 vertical and 12 horizontal threads. I am using this medium to loose weave linen fabric. For my floss, I am using perle cotton - DMC Color Variations #4025. The first step is to come up through the fabric. I don't think it matters where you start, the first step is to take four straight stitches in a row - I worked from right to left:

Here is the first straight stitch. I counted down four threads from where my needle first emerged and went back into the fabric:

Next, I made another straight stitch, one thread to the left from the first stitch. Notice the needle comes up through the fabric at the top of the straight stitch and goes into the fabric at the bottom of the straight stitch:

I did that four times. On the fourth stitch, I then came back up through the fabric through the same hole as the needle went into the fabric at the top of the stitch:

I pulled all the way through and then went back into the fabric four vertical threads to the left:

That starts a second set of four straight stitches. On the fourth stitch, as with the first set, come back up through the same hole and start on a new set of four straight stitches:

Do those same steps until you have four sets of four straight stitches around a center square. When the needle emerges from the last straight stitch, pull all the way through:

and go back into the fabric in the same hole of the first straight stitch for that set and come back out at the opposite corner. When you pull through, this will make a straight stitch at one edge of the center square.

Do the same thing at the next corner:

and the next:

and the final corner:

Pull all the way through and now the center square is all outlined. Now go back into the fabric at the opposite edge diagonally:

Pull through to make a cross stitch and then do the same on the opposite side:

And done! Did this seem confusing? The confusion I had came from looking at the picture in 100 Stitches. It shows starting the first straight stitch {that edges the center square} by going into the fabric at the furthest right-hand end of the top right side horizontal straight stitch set and emerging at the bottom left edge of that same set. When I tried that, it just made a second straight stitch on top of the first one. What am I not understanding? Well this is what my Mosaic Filling looks like:

and the underside of this stitch:

It is a beautiful stitch, if anyone is familiar with this stitch and has some tips or insight, I would love to hear from you!

This stitch is #94 on the 100 Stitches list and is from the Drawn Fabric Embroidery category.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

I stitched up this little owl as a baby shower gift {we have had four baby boys born in our extended family in the last two years!} It has been so much fun for me to give an embroidered gift at each of their baby showers. You can see the others here: {Lion, Sleeping Moon, Cowboy pillow}

I framed this one up in a shadowbox frame. I am very pleased with the result!

After completing this, I drew up a whole set of owls and owl motifs to make an embroidery pattern packet. This is what it looks like:

I am going to stitch a new owl project, I think it would look good on black fabric too.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

I have an update to share on my leprechaun stitching. I have filled in the pot of gold, his hair and beard and am making progress on his outfit. I am glad to be past all the metallic thread stitching! I even added some gold on his jacket buttons.

I am wondering about the color I will use for jacket...I don't think I want him to be in all green.

I am using rows of split stitch on the pants, I hope that will look good - it is starting to resemble green corduroy! I have some other St. Patrick's day stitching - involving these three floss colors again:

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

You may remember back in October I posted about a gift I was stitching up a for a new baby boy? It is all finished and I wanted to share the end result. I made a pillow for his cowboy themed nursery:

If you recall from that post, I used these motifs from the Cowboy embroidery pattern packet and I was struggling a bit trying to find the best colors and stitch to use for the rope.

Problem solved - I went with this rich brown floss, and did a chain stitch. I also took out the yellow star and just went with the red, blue, brown and silver.

I really love this color palette:

The chain stitch worked really well even on all the curves in this rope!

I also added this fringed suede trim - so perfect for a cowboy theme. I just stitched it into the side seams. I decided the trim would work better on the side seams than on the bottom edge where it would always be getting wrinkled.

These are all the elements I used:

I made sure to record everything in my embroidery project journal, I may want to make another one of these pillows!